While most parks tend to draw families in the summer and fall, there are also ideal spots for adventurous winter trips.

The country’s oldest and best-known national park takes on an almost otherworldly atmosphere in winter: the air filled with rolling steam, the strong colors of hot springs, the surrounding white landscapes, let alone the impressive wildlife during this time, like bison, wolves. and playful red foxes. Just book a guided hiking tour to get a ranger’s perspective on the park and local people.

With its giant red rocks and unique trees, you’ll feel like stepping onto a foreign planet as you spend hours hiking the Panoram a Loop or Maze Loop. The park is recognized as an International Dark Sky Park, featuring virtually zero light pollution and the country’s best views of a starry sky.

A significantly lower number of visitors in winter means you can take in unblocked views of the South Rim, and get to see the rare beauty of the Grand Canyon dusted with snow. For those adventurous and daring, it is recommended to hike the Bright Angel Trail and take the chance to see the canyon’s wintertime wildlife, including mule deer, elk, and bald eagles.

Surprise! Not all wintertime national park trips need to involve snow. Virgin Islands National Park is most famous for its white-sand beaches. You can also hike inland to visit old sugar plantations, or venture out to the water to swim along with sea turtles and manta rays. You will definitely enjoy a different winter here.

Chinese cuisine is widely known and enjoyed all around the world. Who doesn’t long for a favorite Chinese dish? But there is one interesting concept concerning Chinese food which is almost unheard of in the West, and which is becoming increasingly ignored by the youth of the East—the ancient custom of “tonic food”.

Tonic food is food which is consumed to improve one’s well-being or avoid sickness. For instance, it was once the custom for new mothers to eat a sesame oil(麻油) chicken soup every day for the first month after giving birth. It was believed that this dish would benefit the muscles, reduce pain, improve circulation, stimulate sweating, and warm the body. Some foods, such as goat meat and spinach, are seen as “hot”, while others, such as Chinese cabbage and radishes, are seen as “cold”. One should be careful not to eat too much of either “hot” or “cold” food. However, how much “hot” or “cold” food one should eat depends on the time of the year, how the food is prepared and what it is prepared with, and the individual’s health.

The custom of employing tonic food for a healthier life also influences the catering industry. Chinese herbal medicines, such as wolfberry(枸杞子), can be found on many a restaurant menu, either added to fruit tea or as a beneficial addition to a dish. These herbs attract customers, such as overworked office staff, in need of a modest pick-me-up.

So, whether you need to boost your strength with a large helping of chicken soup, or increase your mental powers with a serving of fish soup, you may find that this ancient Chinese custom could be just the tonic you were looking for.

Whether in the home or the workplace, social robots are going to become a lot more common in the next few years. Social robots are about to bring technology to the everyday world in a more humanized way, said Cynthia Breazeal, chief scientist at the robot company Jibo.

While household robots today do the normal housework, social robots will be much more like companions than mere tools. For example, these robots will be able to distinguish when someone is happy or sad, This allows them to respond more appropriately to the user.

The Jibo robot, arranged to ship later this year, is designed to be a personalized assistant. You can talk to the robot, ask it questions, and make requests for it to perform different tasks. The robot doesn’t just deliver general answers to questions; it responds based on what it learns about each individual in the household. It can do things such as reminding an elderly family member to take medicine or taking family photos.

Social robots are not just finding their way into the home. They have potential applications in everything from education to health care and are already finding their way into some of these spaces.

Fellow Robots is one company bringing social robots to the market. The company’s “Oshbot” robot is built to assist customers in a store, which can help the customers find items and help guide them to the product’s location in the store. It can also speak different languages and make recommendations for different items based on what the customer is shopping for.

The more interaction the robot has with humans, the more it learns. But Oshbot, like other social robots, is not intended to replace workers, but to work alongside other employees. “We have technologies to train social robots to do things not for us, but with us,” said Breazeal.

Top Tips for Better Writing

There are many different types of writing, such as essays, letters and speeches. Whatever your reason is and whatever your style, there are some universal tips that will help you improve your writing:

Be clear about your purpose

The most basic question to ask yourself before you start is why you are writing. In an essay or assignment, your purpose is to convey information and draw conclusions. But if you are writing a business report, you may want to make recommendations(建议).     12    

Start with a plan

    13    The result is often disjointed writing with parts that don’t connect. Whatever you are writing, creating a clear plan is the first step to getting your message across quickly and in the most effective way.

Guide readers through what you write

Your task is to help readers understand your message quickly and precisely.    14    Each sentence, each paragraph should be relevant to what comes before and what comes after. You should use words and phrases that connect to show these connections.

    15    

Your aim in writing is to communicate ideas and information to other people, and you must keep that in mind with every word and sentence you write. Constantly ask yourself who you really write the information for.

Write for the ear, not for the eye

Once you’ve finished a draft of your speech, practice reading it out loud.     16    Revise so you are more comfortable giving your speech. You want to sound natural, no matter what the occasion is.

Our neighbors had a loud party last night. We weren’t _______ but this was one of those celebrations that I didn’t mind. They are a bunch of young, single guys and I would have felt out of place.

What _______ me was the way they behaved. One of the young men came over _______ in the day to “warn” us of the upcoming event and said it would be over at about 11 p.m. That was the first step. Even more _______ was what they did next. “Here’s my _______,” offered our neighbor _______. “Text me if it’s too noisy.” That was a level of _______ I had never experienced in all my years of being a neighbor!

And it really worked in their favor. My husband and I were so friendly that even when the event went past the _______ end time, even when the music reached high decibels (分贝), and even when we couldn’t get through on the phone number, we felt no _______. We knew they would stop and be ________ eventually.

It takes such little effort to make people feel that they ________ and get people on your side. Everyone needs to let loose every now and then, especially in these uniquely tough times. But people who do it without ________ others are few and far between. I hadn’t fully ________ my neighbors until this week. We had adopted that all too American “live and let live” posture. But now I see them in a new light and with greater ________. They didn’t just bring noise to the neighborhood; they shone the light of ________.

The United Kingdom has a long and interesting history to explore, which can help you understand much more about the country and its traditions. Almost everywhere you go in the UK, you will be surrounded by     47     of four different groups of people who took     48     at different times throughout history. The first group, the Romans, came in the first century. Some of their great     49     included building towns and roads. …The Vikings came in the eighth century, left behind lots of new vocabulary, and also the names of many     50     across the UK.

Anyone can take part in a virtual choir from anywhere—all you need is a video camera and an Internet connection. You do not even need a     51    . A virtual choir helps connect     52     people together. Many people do not have close friends or contacts     53     have the same interest in music. Many others do not have the chance to join a local choir. A virtual choir     54     them to add their voices to those of other     55     and become part of the global community. It has     56     to be a positive influence on the lives of many people.